Damaging windstorms wreck havoc

High damaging winds reaching nearly 40 – 60 + MPH at times, scattered power outages for Clare County, and majority of Michigan statewide were the topic of the day Wednesday March 8th 2017.

Thousands of Michigan residents were impacted by the windstorm due to downed power lines, power outages, trees, and tree limbs blocking roadways Wednesday.

Consumers Energy estimated 300,000 (roughly more) were without power across the state, including 3000 in Clare County Wednesday morning into the evening. Most customers had their power restored by Wednesday afternoon, but many had a restoration time set for Saturday evening.

Clare County saw a fair share of the damaging winds that hit the area March 8th. Many tree branches across roadways, downed power lines, homes, buildings, and yards were in utter disarray from the winds.

Southbound US 127 in Clare County had to shut down due to power lines over the roadway between mile maker 178 and the Snow Bowl Rd. 189 exit. US 127 reopened soon after reports of the downed power lines were made.

Peak wind gusts from Southwest Lower Michigan up to Mt. Pleasant / Clare County area saw winds from 43 MPH to 64 MPH reported near to the Detroit area.
DTE reported roughly over 500,000 had lost power in the Southwest part of the state. Impacts on the Southwest area of the state got hit the hardest with the damaging winds. Officials called it the worst windstorm ever in Michigan.

Jackson County Sheriff’s Department put out warnings to residents to “be careful” of the dangerous weather. 4 people unfortunately died and 5 were injured Wednesday Morning in an apartment building fire in Detroit from the wind direction changing, pushing the flames into the middle of the apartment building.
A Tractor Trailer traveling on Southbound M-83 flipped over due the winds just north of Frankenmuth Michigan.

On Lake Michigan, near South Haven Michigan, wind gusts were so strong in velocity that the giant waves were pushed over the piers. This is just a small portion of what has happened and the damage that has been done by this windstorm. The impact of these dangerous winds has caused massive destruction to Michigan statewide.

Consumers Energy and DTE worked diligently against the winds and time to restore power as quickly as possible to customers.